


Guarded Heart

by TheMondayChild



Category: InuYasha - A Feudal Fairy Tale
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-11
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:55:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 21,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26941000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheMondayChild/pseuds/TheMondayChild
Summary: Every celebrity needs a bodyguard, and Kagome is as A-list as it gets. Things would be a lot simpler if she weren’t also the most powerful miko alive. Her secret abilities require a supernatural guardian, and Inuyasha reluctantly agrees after a sinister organization begins to attack from the shadows.
Relationships: Higurashi Kagome/InuYasha, Miroku/Sango (InuYasha)
Comments: 17
Kudos: 48





	1. Meet Cute

** One: Meet Cute **

“Any last words before I gut you and slit your worthless fucking neck?”

The centipede whore lunged for Inuyasha again, but she was restrained by the collar of glowing spiritual energy around her neck. He snarled and backhanded her, unafraid of her gaping maw with its sharp teeth and toxic, slimy saliva.

“Wait!” she cried when she saw him flex his claws. “You want to know about the jewel, yes?”

Inuyasha quirked one dark brow. That wasn’t part of the mission. But yeah, he wanted to know. Mistress Centipede took his silence for what it was, intense curiosity.

“It’s out there, hanyō.” Her long tongue flicked out, tasting the air. “Can’t you smell it? Feel its call pulse through your veins? It’s come back to us.”

“Keh, that fuckin’ bauble burned up fifty years ago. Besides, that’s no reason to eat an entire fuckin’ bus of miserable, helpless humans.”

“The more I eat, the stronger I get. The stronger I am, the better chance I have at competing for the jewel.” Her too-wide mouth cracked open in a hideous attempt at a smile, green drool oozing down her chin. “This false peace the rest of you made with the humans will not last when more of us are aware of the power that lies within reach. One of us will be victorious, and then things will return to how they were in the days of your father’s rule before your whore of a mother spread her filthy human legs—”

That was enough of that. Inuyasha fulfilled his promise of killing her, but instead of cutting her open and making her watch her own guts spill out before he finished the job, he just cut her head off to shut her up. He cringed as he yanked her head from the ground, the long black hair of his prey greasy with her vile blood. A small thrill ran through him when he thought of how his prissy bitch of a boss would react when he dropped it right on his desk.

“Come in, Inuyasha. What’s the status? Over.” The staticky voice in his ear was unexpected and he almost dropped Mistress Centipede.

“The bitch is dead. Said somethin’ about wanting to eat more and get stronger.” The part about the jewel he kept secret. There was no need to worry headquarters. Not yet, anyway. Not over the words of some nobody low-level demon.

A sigh. “Remember to say ‘over’ when you’re done, over.”

He grinned and there was no one there to see that it was just as terrifying as Mistress Centipede’s had been. Maybe even more so.

“I’ve got a nice present for you, boss. _Over_.”

**O\o/O**

Kagome tried to keep the pleasant Mona Lisa smile on her face even when the make-up artist was using a way too rough brush and the hair stylist was using so much hair spray that she feared her hair would break off if she dared touch it. What was the point of all this, anyway? It was a short radio interview and what was filmed wouldn’t be broadcast on television, just across the station’s social media. They didn’t have to go all out like this.

Her manager was somehow able to stick her head into the ongoing war on Kagome’s natural looks. “Remember, Kagome, when they ask which celeb you’re dating, what are you going to say?”

She smiled just as coyly as she had practiced and fluttered her eyelashes. Her cheeks were flushed from all the coffee she’d had, something she’d done on purpose.

“I don’t plan on settling for any one man while I’m still so young. Don’t you think it’s time girls had fun like the boys do?”

Sango clapped her hands. “Perfect! Exactly the kind of line to go with your new image.”

Kagome snorted and allowed herself to slouch. “What, sexy baby?” Her voice was noticeably deeper now, no longer the sweet and breathy kitten-like purr that insinuated so many things her innocent face denied. “Don’t you think that’s kinda played out already, Sango?”

Her manager had already moved on. “Push-up bra or no bra?” she asked the person in charge of her wardrobe.

“No bra, yes tape.”

Just like that, Kagome was helped to her feet and undressed by several pairs of strange hands. At least none of them ventured to touch her inappropriately this time. When the whirlwind of movement had passed, she was finally able to look at herself in the mirror.

The white halter top was somewhat conservative after all the outrageous outfits she had been photographed and filmed in so far in anticipation of her solo album’s release. There was no cleavage and it only showed a little of the sun-kissed skin of her stomach. But if you stared for longer than a second, you noticed the barest outline of her nipples. Kagome knew that Sango would order the air conditioning to be cranked up in the studio, too, which would leave so little to the imagination that she wondered if going topless would be any real difference.

Then there was the pink skirt. Tiny skirts had been her trademark back before she went solo, and it was a plaid print, calling to mind both her girl group days and the always uncomfortable fact that they were dressing up like minors to appeal to dark male fantasies. This particular pleated little number did show off the toned legs she’d always had thanks to having to walk up all those stairs to the shrine, but they also showed off the rounding of her ass as well. Thank the gods she’d be sitting down for the interview.

“Where are her knee-highs and mary janes!?” Sango yelled, causing the wardrobe people to run around like chickens with their heads cut off in a frightening flurry. “Come on, people! This is _the_ Kagome Higurashi, and she is the biggest fucking star you will ever have the privilege of sharing air with. Move your fucking asses!”

Kagome had her hosiery and shoes on before she could even blink. Tottering in the high shoes, she wondered how she could dance in platforms inches taller than these and still have a hard time walking in such heels. You could take the girl outta the shrine, but you couldn’t take the shrine outta the girl.

“You’re up, Kagome,” Sango said. “Tease, but don’t flirt. We left cute behind with The Four Souls.”

Hearing the name of her girl group brought her a pang of sadness. “Oh, he’s going to ask about them, Sango. I don’t know if I can handle that.” Tears threatened from the mere thought of having to address the rumors.

Sango rolled her eyes and sighed. “No one cares about those harpies anymore. It’s all about you, now. Well, it always was, but this time you’re not dragging around that dead weight.”

“They’re not dead weight! They’re—they _were_ —my best friends.” Her lips formed a pout. “And they still would be if your dad hadn’t focused only on me.”

Her previous agent, Sango’s late father, was still quite a sore spot even though he had died a year before. Kagome saw that she had hurt her friend in the way her eyes hardened and her lips pursed.

“He did what would bring us success, and in that case, it was to showcase the only real star power that group had. The others wouldn’t have even been welcomed at a karaoke bar if it wasn’t for you and they know it. Everyone knows it.”

“But what do I say? What if the girls listen to the interview and hate me?”

Sango took a deep breath and put both hands on Kagome’s shoulders. “Kagome, dear, they already hate you. Now you go in there and when he asks about The Four Souls, tell him you all decided to strike out on your own. Maybe even hint at a reunion. Nothing’s really over as long as there’s still money to be made.”

“You’re such a bitch, Sango,” she said, smiling a little to show that she didn’t totally mean that in a bad way.

The much taller woman patted her on the head in a way that she knew would annoy her client, careful not to alter the work of the stylist.

“So they can keep seeing you as a pretty little kitten, I’m more than happy to be a tiger. Let’s just hope your temper doesn’t get the better of you again until at least your next concept.”

That made her laugh. “Hey, it got the paparazzi off my back for a whole weekend!”

“We’re still paying for his physical therapy.”

Kagome scampered off to the studio, ushered in by an employee who, to his credit, had tried very hard not to stare at the T and A she had on display before breaking down and fixating on them. When he gave her the rundown of rules and topics and everything, he was addressing her nipples, and she nodded along like she hadn’t done this a hundred times. Finally, she was in front of a mic and the giant headphones had ruined all the hard work that had been done on her hair.

“We are sitting here in the studio with Kagome Higurashi, formerly the frontwoman of The Four Souls. Her first solo album, _Sweet Pink Cherry_ , is dropping in only two more weeks.”

He held up a poster of her album cover which had been signed by her, directing it at the camera. The photo was something that would have embarrassed her just one year ago, a lewd pose she would have outright refused to do before. But there she was, in glossy print, topless with only a convenient few falling cherry blossoms obscuring a view of her nipples. She was in a little plaid skirt and knee highs like she was now, only one of her hands held the skirt up, giving a peek of her panties, while the other was suggestively running up her thigh. Her hair was artfully messed and she was biting her lip.

“We’re giving out signed posters to the first five callers after our interview.” He turned to face her and his unnecessary sunglasses weren’t quite dark enough to hide where his gaze went first. “It’s so great to have you in the studio, Kagome.”

“It’s great to be here! I love K-WAP and listen to it all the time.” That was a lie. Who even listened to radio anymore?

He went on to ask her all the normal stuff. Her inspiration, where she’d gotten her tan, her date to the last awards show, her love life. Kagome dutifully parroted back the lines Sango and she had worked on before, wondering if the sexiness she’d put on like any other costume had crossed the line into comedic territory yet. When he finally asked about The Four Souls’ split, she only faltered a little.

“W-we decided to each strike out on our own. It’s hard to share the spotlight, y’know?” She smiled big enough that hopefully he’d be distracted from how nervous the question made her.

“In my opinion, you never had to worry about that. Even in a group full of beautiful girls, you were always the one who stood out.”

“That’s quite the compliment,” Kagome returned. She thought of saying something to positively shift the attention to her former group members, but what was the point? They already hated her and never wanted to see her again.

“You’re the luckiest audience in the world since you’re going to get the first ever listen of _Daddy’s Lap_ , the first single off Kagome’s solo album and sure to be a smash hit. After that, we’ll find out who our first five callers are who will win the signed poster of Kagome Higurashi. Thank you so much for coming in on what I’m sure is a crazy busy schedule, Kagome. We’d love to have you back any time.”

“That would be so fantastic!” She just barely held back a lisp. Damn, she was taking this role a bit too far. The bass note-smack-moan pattern began to play and she recognized the intro of her hopefully soon-to-be hit song.

“Wow, it was really so great meeting you,” the radio show host whose name she had already forgotten said. “I mean, I get to meet so many amazing talents here but you really stand out, like I said. Me and my buddy are actually hosting a party tonight, and if you’d be down to chill and hang out, maybe have a smoke sesh—”

“Kagome has another interview right after this,” Sango said, smiling toothily like the predator she was. “We’re auditioning a male lead for the _Daddy’s Lap_ video if you want to see her again soon.”

He laughed uncomfortably. “Uh, I think I’m still a bit too young for that yet.”

“Don’t you have daughters around Kagome’s age, though? It wouldn’t be that far-fetched.” She flicked her business card on the desk. Kagome recognized it as the one with the general number and not her personal one. Those ones were only handed out when someone wasn’t too important but Sango still wanted to preserve the relationship. “Think about it and give me a call.”

Kagome waved a hurried goodbye and walked arm in arm with her manager on the way out of the building.

“Thanks for that,” Kagome said, voice low. “I just wish these creeps would stop.”

“I don’t,” Sango said frankly. “That means your career stops, too, and mine along with it.”

“…I guess.”

“Your personal items are all in the car. I think your outfit is just fine for auditioning, don’t you?”

She shrugged. “It’s pretty much like what I expect to wear in the video, so yeah.”

Sango frowned. “You seem down, Kagome. That guy really got to you, huh?”

That wasn’t even close to her problem, but she just shook her head, not even noticing when she slipped on her stage smile.

“No. Everything’s fine.”

Her manager came to a stop and crossed her arms, giving her an assessing up and down look.

“Kagome, I was your friend before I was your manager. Talk to me.”

“It’s not a big deal, okay? Let’s just go to the auditions. I don’t want to be late.” She turned to continue on her way out, but mostly so that Sango wouldn’t see her face.

“It’s Hojo, isn’t it?”

Just his name filled her with a kind of guilt and sorrow that left no room for air in her lungs. Kagome turned on her heel and faced her only remaining friend, fire in her eyes.

“ _Don’t_.”

Sango took a step back. “Okay. Yeah, okay.” She cleared her throat and followed Kagome.

When she wanted, the girl could be pretty darn scary. After a single phone call with her, the unfortunate photographer who had infiltrated her birthday party had agreed not to press charges or publicize what she had done to him. Her father had always said Kagome took after her grandmother, and Sango had thought he meant how her grandmother was once she had settled down, the kind little woman who liked to cook and bake and tell stories. But more and more she was seeing how true the Higurashi bloodline remained even after the days of legend and war.

“No old men,” Kagome grumbled, mostly to herself. “It’s already all ‘daddy, daddy’ rapey child proxy Melanie Martinez shit, so the least I can do is choose someone age-appropriate and not a fu—”

Sango saw it happening and didn’t even have time to process it before all hell broke loose. Just as Kagome touched the gleaming brass door handle to finally go back outside, a horde of demons burst in through the floor-to-ceiling window to their right. Sango reached for her hiraikotsu before she remembered she had left it in the car. But demons like this never fucking came out in the day! Oh shit, and they weren’t dispersing, they were all headed right for Kagome.

“Ugh!” Kagome rolled her eyes and stomped one foot. “Can’t I just have one thing go right today?”

Pouting her pink-glossed lips, Kagome Higurashi, girl group leader, sex symbol, and A-list performer, put one hand on her cocked hip and held up the other in a talk-to-the-hand gesture. The demons roared and continued on their path toward her.

All of them exploded in a blast of pink sparkling light.

Sango gaped at her. “Sometimes I forget you can do that.” There had to have been over a hundred of those bastards.

Kagome flipped her hair over her shoulder and pulled out her sunglasses. “Make sure the security footage is wiped. I’ll be in the car.”

The other half of her job duties kicked in and she sprang into action, marching over to the desk. She kept her resting bitch face on, but inside, she was scared. Nothing had ever happened like that, not in fifty years. And the demons hadn’t even gone for the easy human prey in the building. No, they had all bee-lined right for Kagome. That couldn’t have been an accident.

They were going to need help.

**O\o/O**

Inuyasha tossed the head on the desk.

“Direct deposit the bounty and don’t call me for two weeks. I’m gonna go on vacation.” He didn’t take vacations, but he did need to investigate what the crazy old bitch had been talking about when she mentioned the jewel. He had personally seen it disappear fifty years ago.

The young human stared at the open-mouthed head with quickly decaying skin, blood and grime-coated forked tongue ribboning out across his precious paperwork. To his credit, he merely paled a little.

“Um, thanks, Inuyasha. But I’m afraid that isn’t possible.” Delicately, he pushed the head to the corner of the desk using a pencil. “We’re having a mandatory team-building event. You’ll like it, it’s very competitive. And the winner gets a special prize.”

“The only special prize I want is a fuckin’ break,” he said, just barely managing to keep from growling at him. “C’mon, I’ve got over fifty years of vacation time that I haven’t taken. I think I deserve a little time off.”

The boss smiled at him, looking so young and pure that he wanted to punch him in the fucking face.

“It’s just a week, Inuyasha. And all you have to do is lose and you can do whatever you want.”

Inuyasha glared at him and crossed his arms over his chest. The bastard knew he wouldn’t be able to do something so lame and cowardly like losing on purpose, no matter what.

“Who’s competing?”

“Our top ten percent of agents.”

He felt his blood begin to tingle with the urge to be freed and cut into the flesh of an enemy. The top ten percent might even offer him a tiny bit of real challenge. It had been decades since his last struggle. He almost forgot what it felt like.

“What’s the prize?”

“A secret.” The smile on his face was strange. Like it was something he didn’t want to give.

Fuck, it must be awesome.

“So, you just wanna know who the best is, right? The team-building thing is bullshit?”

“You’re sharp,” he said. Reaching inside his desk, he pulled out a map. “We’ll be meeting at one of our retreat lodges. It’s very posh, you’ll hate it. And everyone will have a roommate, so there will be some team-building going on. Camaraderie is important, you know, especially when working with a partner or group.”

Inuyasha sneered at the very thought. “I work alone. Didn’t your old man tell ya before he handed you the reins?”

“Oh, I know all about you, Inuyasha. That’s why, if I were a betting man, I’d place my money on you to win.”

He grabbed the pamphlet, ignoring the way the compliment stroked his ego. “When?”

“Monday. Get there by dawn.”

Inuyasha nodded. “I’ll be there.”

Before the boss could say anything else, he left. After he kicked everyone’s ass and collected that sweet cash bonus prize, he’d go to the streets and find out if anyone else had heard about the jewel. His father’s name still held a lot of weight in some circles, and his own paralyzed others with fear. The information shouldn’t be hard to get, though the more he thought about it the more he felt the centipede was crazy.

And since the new boss was just a kid, he couldn’t trust him with the news about the jewel. Hojo was mostly okay in his position as the technical head honcho, but he was as green as they came. Good for paperwork and not much else.

By the time the competition rolled around, Inuyasha was more than ready. For the first time in half a century, he had not taken on a new assignment immediately after the last one. That left him antsy and itching for a fight. He’d even gotten into a minor altercation with the ramen delivery guy when he waited around too long even after getting his tip. What the fuck did he want, more? Fuckin’ worthless piece of…

Inuyasha was still stewing over it when he checked into his room at the lodge. What he saw when he arrived didn’t make things even remotely better.

“You,” he hissed, dropping his backpack on the floor. It had taken every remaining ounce of restraint he still possessed to avoid throwing it at his roommate’s face before tackling him with punches.

“Dog shit?” Kōga sniffed exaggeratedly and frowned. “Ugh, who the fuck assigned these room pairings?”

“New regime, new problems.” Inuyasha lay down on the bed. Maybe he could get a quick nap in before breakfast and the event kick-off.

“He ain’t that bad.” Kōga took a rolled up poster from his weekend bag and carefully attached it to the wall with command strips. “His grandpa was a helluva lot worse.”

Inuyasha snorted. “His grandpa inherited an entire fucking war. Shit was unprecedented.” He could have gone on, but his eyes were glued to the nearly naked woman on the wall. Her heart-shaped face was familiar enough to be disturbing.

“She’s not for your eyes, dog shit!” Kōga said, covering the poster with his hands. “Kagome-chan is _my_ woman.”

He blinked. “You do know that’s a piece of paper, right?”

Kōga was off in another world, staring adoringly at the two-dimensional temptress. “I was the first caller for her latest interview on K-WAP. I beat out hundreds of others. This is just another sign from the gods that we’re meant to be together.”

It had been clear to the half-demon from the day they met that the wolf was fucking looney tunes. Now he was caressing the paper over where sakura blossoms just barely covered the girl’s nipples. The lack of assignments must have affected him more than he thought, since he wanted to put the fucker’s annoying head through the wall just for that.

“Calm down, wolf. She ain’t that great.”

Kōga turned and snarled at him. “Not that great? Not that _great_!?” Gesturing wildly at the poster he continued, “Kagome-chan was a straight-A student and maintained a perfect 4.0 throughout high school and university even with her hectic performing and touring schedule with her first group, The Four Souls. Kagome-chan was discovered at only fifteen when pressured by friends to perform at a talent show as the super group that would later be called The Four Souls and wowed the crowd so much someone filmed it and posted it online where it gained over five-hundred thousand views in under twenty-four hours! Kagome-chan is only one-hundred fifty-three centimeters and forty-nine kilograms yet she holds two world records for archery and—”

“Enough!” Inuyasha barked. “Memorizing her Wikipedia page is creepy, not cool. That bitch has no idea you even exist, and for that, I’m incredibly fuckin’ jealous of her.”

“She does know I exist! I had front row seats and backstage passes every single time they performed in Tokyo.” His eyes glazed over as he looked back at the poster. “Kagome-chan remembered me the fifth time I met her and even asked how Ginta and Hakkaku were. And I already made sure my upcoming assignments wouldn’t interfere with her tour schedule so I can see her as many times as possible.”

A chill ran down Inuyasha’s spine. Kōga needed help, and whoever this bitch was needed help too with him as a fan.

“Uh, speaking of assignments, whaddya think this whole thing is for?” Anything to get him to shut up about the idol with the clear gray eyes that brought to mind the sun breaking through the clouds on a dismal day made unexpectedly beautiful.

“Stop looking at her!” Kōga yelled again. Once he was satisfied Inuyasha wasn’t going to mad dog his piece of paper, he relaxed a little. “Who gives a fuck. I’m just glad we finally get a chance to compete against each other so it’s not just about numbers on paper and the pencil-pushers can see who really is the greatest.”

Inuyasha grinned. They never gave them an official ranking, always wanting to keep them hungry for something, but with all the assignment offers he received, he knew he had to be up there. Top of the top ten, probably. And that was all by himself. Meanwhile, Kōga had what he assumed were his two boyfriends working with him every step of the way and still wasn’t as busy or as quick as Inuyasha was.

An alarm sounded in the hall and they jumped to attention. Other agents he vaguely recognized were filing out of their rooms and they grunted greetings at one another. Most of the other demonics had been a part of the association for at least twenty years, the humans for half that. He was one of the longest-serving agents that hadn’t moved on to management. Truth was, he didn’t want to, but more than that, he just wasn’t suited for that kind of life. Inuyasha needed to be out there where all the action was, moving and fighting and improving and forgetting.

“Welcome! Good to see you all.” Hojo stood in the lodge’s main dining room. All the chairs and tables had been put away and it was just a bunch of hardened men and women standing there, staring at him, the shortest among them topping him by a good three inches. “You all know why you’re here. Welcome to the Spiritual Combat Association’s first ever team building luncheon conference and arena-style battle.”

Hojo was a little out of breath after that. After a glass of water handed to him by one assistant, he turned back to them with that same dull smile on his blandly handsome face.

“Every day there will be a competition. There is one specific goal per day that will be announced before the action, and those who accomplish it will move on to the next round. Once eliminated, feel free to retire to your rooms and enjoy the lodge’s luxuries, such as the buffet and expert massages and entertainment center. A free vacation for all your hard work in making it to the top ten percent of combat agents.”

He paused for applause but there were none.

“Uh, we’re having our first competition before breakfast. We expect half of you to be eliminated. We’ve designed a fairly straight-forward race through the woods. The first agent to make it back to this room wins.”

While everyone else was looking around and asking questions, Inuyasha breezed past the boss and the rest of the crowd and made for the clearly marked start at the edge of the forest. Kōga was right on his heels.

“He didn’t say start, dog shit!”

Inuyasha ignored him and bounded upwards into the tree branches. Now that he had left, everyone else was following suit. Kōga sped away, the fastest agent he knew, and immediately fell into a pitfall. Inuyasha continued to leap from tree to tree, snickering as he kept an eye out for any possible traps, attacks, or obstacles.

Winning that prize was practically going to be a vacation in itself.

**O\o/O**

“I don’t understand why we had to reschedule everything and bother everyone with this,” Kagome huffed in the back of the limo. “It’s not like I can’t handle it.”

“You’re being targeted, Kagome,” Sango patiently explained for what felt like the tenth time. “We don’t know what they’re capable of and I have so many duties as your manager that I’m afraid I can’t fulfill my others as your guardian.”

Kagome crossed her arms over her chest and pouted, staring out the window. Since she had been allowed to dress herself today, much less of her skin was on display. The lavender sundress was still short, but she wore a daffodil-colored embroidered cardigan over it. With no false lashes and stage make-up, she would have been all but unrecognizable to everyone but her most die-hard fans.

“But do we have to go to Hojo, of all people?” Her plea was just short of a whine.

Her manager put down her phone and took a deep breath. “Kagome, I don’t know what exactly went on between the two of you, but I do know it’s well past the time you should have put it behind you. Look at this!” She opened her arms and gestured to the complimentary champagne and chocolate-dipped strawberries that came with the car. “Look where you are and what you have. The male population of the world would kill their family just for the opportunity to wait in a long line on a summer’s day to be slammed in the face with a pie you threw.”

Kagome gave her a look. “That’s just weird.”

“But accurate.” She picked up her phone again and sent yet another apology email to reschedule a television interview. “He’s a nice guy, I get it, and exactly that cookie-cutter prince charming type everyone wants when they’re fifteen. But you’re not fifteen anymore. Maybe real Kagome should take a look at stage persona Kagome and have a little fun.”

Her cheeks flushed at the mere thought and she nervously tucked one of her naturally exasperating wavy strands of hair behind an ear. For so long, she had thought of Hojo as The One, even after he pushed her away without a word of explanation other than his duty to the Association. He was the first boy she had ever dated and the only one who knew her from before her music career. He had seen the real Kagome and he had liked her enough to talk about marriage at one point. No one else could even begin to approach her anymore, not now that she was a celebrity. They expected her to be that smilingly seductive sex toy when she was really just a cat person who liked romantic movies and spending time with her family.

“Real Kagome and stage persona Kagome are opposite poles,” Kagome said. “Stage persona Kagome wants to steal your man and leave him in the dust. Real Kagome wants a grilled cheese and a nap with a nice warm big spoon that doesn’t mind being my little spoon.”

One side of Sango’s mouth quirked in a smile. “You know, Kohaku still asks about you. He’s coming home from college for the summer and wants me to host a nice dinner just the three of us and promptly skedaddle.”

Kagome laughed but then felt bad. Kohaku had been crushing on her since he was twelve. “As much as I’d love for us to be real sisters, he’s just not my type.”

“Meaning he’s not Hojo?” It was phrased like a joke but her tone was just a little too sharp. The siblings were very close and Sango especially was protective of her brother.

“ _Meaning_ he’s just not my type. I want someone…” She hadn’t thought about this in a long time. “Someone strong. Not necessarily nice, but kind. Someone I can talk with and fight with and live with and laugh with. Someone who actually wants me.” Tears pricked at her eyes and, to her great embarrassment, Sango noticed. They picked up their glasses and clinked them together in a toast. “With a big dick and kinky tongue.”

Sango snorted champagne out of her nose. “Kagome! Was that you or stage you?”

She smirked. “We do share a couple things. Where are we even going, anyway?” she asked, finally biting into one of the strawberries.

“Hojo’s assistant gave me the address of some retreat center outside the city. Shouldn’t be too much longer.”

Kagome tried not to make her sadness obvious. His assistant? He hadn’t even taken the time to reply himself? She could have been killed! She felt her power sparking inside of her, wanting to boil out and purify something. Kagome took a deep breath and held it, just the way her grandma had taught her at the beginning of her training. It took the edge off, but she didn’t have the lung capacity for a situation this stressful.

She sighed and went back to looking out the window since Sango was back to texting manically. At least she would see Hojo again. Maybe this time he wouldn’t do that thing where she was sure she was done with him and started to feel comfortable but then he pulled her aside and reeled her back in like the stupid fish she was. Kagome downed the rest of her champagne and reached to fill her glass up again.

Sometimes she wished a real princely type would come along and sweep her off her feet so she could stop thinking about her classically attractive and charming yet emotionally unavailable friend.

**O\o/O**

Inuyasha’s whooping laugh triumphed over the arena as he stood on top of the hill of decapitated demon prisoners.

“Number one-fuckin’-hundred!” he yelled. “Who’s next? Who else wants to fuck with death!?”

There were few remaining agents participating but they all stayed far, far away.

“There’s no one left, asshole!” Kōga called out, the only one brave—or was it stupid?—enough to do so. “You went on a fuckin’ rampage and massacred them before they even told us the goal!”

Inuyasha tossed the head up in the air and kicked it, watching it sail through the trees.

“They brought us demon criminals. What the fuck else could the goal be but to thin the prison population? Too fuckin’ expensive.”

“Ya ever think that they were held for a reason? Like information that’s valuable to the Association?”

Inuyasha paused and then shook his head. “Nah. Then they wouldn’t have brought me to deal with ‘em.”

“Uh, actually, Inuyasha, the objective was to apprehend and cuff as many as you could in ten minutes.” Hojo’s voice came from the loudspeakers he had only briefly noticed on the way in. “Since they were all scheduled for termination, however, this works too.”

“So I win, right?” Inuyasha said. “It’s the last day. Where’s my fuckin’ bonus?”

“Everyone, please report back to the dining room. Thank you!”

With a growl, he clambered down from the sloping pyramid of corpses. Couldn’t they just hand him the prize so he could be on his merry fucking way already? He and the other participants went back to the room where it had all started, dirty and tired and no longer having fun. Hojo, of course, was as pure and preppy as ever. Fucker never got his hands dirty.

“Congratulations to our top agents!” Hojo said, clapping his hands. He was met with silence and hardened stares. “Inuyasha, while you did win the last round, I’ve decided to include a winner-take-all final challenge. You will all compete against the already eliminated agents who have spent their time resting and being pampered. Whoever is the champion of this final round gets the special surprise.”

“This is bullshit!” Inuyasha groaned.

Hojo ignored him. “I’ll be heading to my room while that clock counts down five minutes. After those five minutes, whoever is the first to reach me in room 212 is the winner. Good luck!”

And he walked away.

The agents who had earlier been eliminated were excitedly going over strategy plans, some of them teaming up. Kōga was stretching, an annoyingly confident look on his face. The clock counted down.

It was Inuyasha who threw the first punch.

“What the fuck!” Kōga said, flat on his back. “This ain’t a fuckin’ melee, dumbass, we’re supposed to—”

He punched him again, this time knocking him out.

Once everyone else realized what he was doing, panic ensued. Some tried to run, but he went after those first, dragging them kicking and screaming back into the dining room, demon and human alike. Inuyasha had come here to win, and he _had_ , gods fucking dammit. If they needed him to take out the trash to prove he deserved this, then he would. And he’d grab his prize and take his fifty-plus years of vacation time and maybe even track down and destroy the thing that he thought he’d taken care of way back when.

A few of the craftier ones had headed for the balcony overlooking the dining room, and he left the chaos he had created to run after them, easily overtaking them. It wasn’t hard to do with his reputation preceding him, and also maybe the fact that they had all just watched him tear apart a hundred demons in ten minutes while still taking the time to enjoy it on the gigantic big screen in the dining room.

He kicked and hit and clawed his way through the halls, a couple times mistakenly getting shifty-looking lodge staff by mistake, and then he finally stood in front of 212’s front door.

Inuyasha kicked it down and sailed his way inside.

“Where’s my fucking prize, you little prick!?” he demanded, grabbing his boss by the collar.

A barrier came up between the two of them and he hissed, clutching his burned hand as he sprang back. Barriers and spiritual objects. The only things the Hojos were good at other than paperwork.

“Inuyasha. Somehow, I knew it would be you. An agent who doesn’t follow the rules would be ideal.” Hojo didn’t appear the least bit ruffled at being assaulted by an employee, instead just smoothing his hair and fixing his shirt back into their immaculate place.

He crossed his arms and glared. Behind him were two women, one of them frozen with an open mouth and a chocolate-covered strawberry halted halfway to its destination. The other was giving him a look like an old maid school teacher would when she wanted to drag a misbehaving kid in from recess.

“Inuyasha, these are two very dear friends of mine, Sango and Kagome.”

“Prostitutes, Hojo? Really? Not even your old man woulda pulled shit like this, and if he did, they’d at least be expensive.”

“Sango _Taijiya_ and Kagome _Higurashi_.”

At the revelation of their last names, Inuyasha looked them over again, heart beating quicker. The Taijiya family were the only strictly human members of the Association, fighting with magical objects they crafted themselves. And the Higurashis…

“And?” Inuyasha asked, remembering just in time to look arrogant rather than taken aback.

“You must recognize Kagome,” Hojo said, looking over at the smaller girl. His smile was almost invisible, the slight curve of his lips sad somehow. Inuyasha realized it was the first genuine smile he had ever seen on the boy.

“Can’t say I do,” he said, avoiding looking at her. She was too much like _her_. Gods, even that gorgeous fucking smell. Was it even better than hers had been, or was he just not remembering it right after so many years?

“She’s very famous and her following is only going to grow with her latest project. Because of that, she’s going to need a bodyguard.”

Things were beginning to make sense now. Inuyasha felt his blood rush with anger so fast that it made him wonder if it was possible for life to imitate art when it came to cartoon characters with steam coming out of their ears.

“So you brought me out here to the middle of fuckin’ nowhere without pay, denying me the one break I’ve wanted in fifty years, for an entire fucking _week_ just because some dumb fucking actress is scared of a psycho stealing her panties?”

The five-foot-nothing little gumdrop of a human being shot to her feet and charged over to him, hand outstretched until it was wrapped around his much higher neck. He could have moved, could have gotten away, could have avoided being touched by her entirely, but Inuyasha was paralyzed by the fire in those gray eyes and gods, he wanted to know how it felt to be touched by that flame.

Until the purifying power crackled down to his very bones and he was suddenly a smoking, stumbling mess of a human.

“You big stupid idiot!” The Higurashi girl watched him slide down the wall and fall to his knees at her dainty little sandaled feet. “For your information, I’m not an actress, I’m a _singer_. And I also outrank you!”

Hojo’s real smile was a lot wider now. “Kagome here is our strongest spiritual agent. What you did today with those hundred demons she did last week, only they burst into ash on contact.” There was a little more than pride in his voice. It made Inuyasha like him even less. “But while Kagome is far from helpless, she’s not invulnerable. When she expends a lot of energy, it takes her at least an hour to recover. Sometimes, it even zaps her regular strength and she has to take one long nap. Our little sleeping beauty.”

The way Kagome fluttered her eyelashes up at Hojo made him wheeze.

“So you made the strongest agents you have leave the field and fight each other for a solid week because this moron wants to keep exploiting her mediocre and already fading looks to make money on a massive scale while being targeted by an anonymous villain that rivals the evil of fifty years ago. I’m supposed to put my life on the line for an even more selfish version of Taylor Swift?”

“I’ll zap you again, idiot, I don’t care!” Kagome hissed.

“I’m already human, _idiot_ , you can’t do shit.” Though he was already quickly back on his way to being a half-demon.

“Kagome will be embarking on a world tour. While I and the rest of the board have advised her against it, for her to cancel everything now would mean at best bankruptcy for her and everyone on her staff, and at worst bankruptcy and forfeiting her career entirely, so she’s understandably reluctant to do so. This necessitated a compromise. Kagome will travel only on SCA-owned buses and planes and be accompanied everywhere she goes by our strongest agent. That means you.”

Inuyasha was about to run his mouth again but then he reconsidered. A world tour.

“Would we be traveling across the country first or immediately going abroad?”

The other woman spoke up for the first time. “First all the major spots here and then on to the rest before coming back here again.”

It would be the perfect cover for hunting down information about the jewel. Nobody would suspect a dumb pop singer’s entourage member of being willing to kill to find the jewel.

“Fine. I’ll do it.”

“Who says I want you?” Kagome said, glaring at him with her hands on her hips.

“You want the best, right? I’m the fuckin’ best.”

“In your case, second-best is more than good enough.”

Hojo piped up, “I could always call Kōga Ookami up here. I think he did pretty well, too.”

Kagome blanched at the name. “Um, you know what? I think Inuyasha will be fine. As long as he watches himself so I don’t have to turn him human again.”

“Great! I’ll make the announcement.” Hojo cleared his throat and brought a microphone to his mouth, flipping it on. “Thank you, agents. Our winner has been chosen! Inuyasha Taisho placed first in every single challenge and has won our secret prize, the honor of being Kagome Higurashi’s personal bodyguard. Thank you all for participating and please continue to enjoy the lodge.”

There was a prolonged scream of absolute anguish and they made uncomfortable eye contact with one another, each of them recognizing Kōga’s voice.

“Is there a back door we can use, Hojo?” Kagome asked.

“Yeah, right there—”

“Great,” Inuyasha grunted and grabbed Kagome’s wrist. “Take me back to your place and give me a list of venues so I can plan out security. Then you need to tell me every even remotely weird thing that’s happened to you ever since that fuckin’ talent show.”

Kagome looked up at him, eyes sparkling with surprise. “You _do_ know who I am!”

He stumbled on the stairs and silently cursed himself for being drawn in. Fuck, but it was too easy for her. Kagome didn’t even have to try. _She_ had laid the groundwork for this one and Inuyasha wasn’t sure he could avoid the trap this time.

“Get on,” Inuyasha demanded, crouching down and pulling her on his back. Kagome yelped as they took off. “Which car is yours?”

“The limo!” she said, laughing as one of her sandals flew off. “But we can go back to the city like this, I don’t mind.”

When Kagome curled her arms around his neck and he felt the warm press of her body against his, he didn’t mind either.

**Note: Yayyy new story to distract me from my other stories! Major heart eyes directed at heartrush for beta-ing this chapter and twinning with me.**

**New TTC chapter is being edited and I’m restraining myself from adding a ton of more stuff because I know an update is more important than another 40-pager.**


	2. Truth Hurts

** Two: Truth Hurts **

Even though the Spiritual Combat Association’s lodge was way out in the middle of nowhere, they got back to the shrine quickly. It was almost worth the stinging wind in her eyes and Inuyasha’s hair in her mouth.

The moment the half demon’s feet touched the ground on shrine property, Kagome shoved away from him.

“I do have a car, y’know!”

“You said you didn’t mind comin’ back this way and I didn’t wanna sit in fuckin’ traffic!”

“The least you could have done was be gentle! Every time we landed it was a damned jolting collision. I thought I was going to get a concussion from knocking against that hard head of yours.”

Inuyasha turned his back and started walking up the remaining stairs to the house. Maybe, just maybe, he had been a little rough on purpose. She was just so prissy and annoying and she gasped a little with every step he took in such a way that chills ran up and down his spine. It had been a long time since he had traveled that way, and never with a girl like her.

“Hey, I’m talking to you, you jerk!”

Inuyasha walked faster.

Kagome scrambled behind him, knees weak from the stress of the journey. She could still feel where her new bodyguard’s fingers had clutched her thighs. Gross. She better not bruise just because some himbo didn’t know his own strength.

“What the fuck is this? I was expecting a penthouse,” Inuyasha said as soon as she caught up with him.

“I don’t have the money for that!” she snapped. “We can’t all be Beyoncé. Everything I made while I was with The Four Souls was split between us and launching my solo career has me spending more money than I’m earning.”

Inuyasha had already stopped listening. Leaning far too close to her for her comfort, he took a long sniff.

“Ew! What are you doing!?”

“Checkin’ to see if you have a drug habit.”

“Nee-san!”

The boy who came running out of the house was in a middle school uniform even though he looked tiny enough to still be in elementary school. Inuyasha studied the pale kid and the breeze brought him the scent of his sickness. Oh. Her living situation suddenly made a whole lot more sense. And great, he felt like an asshole now. He was kind of grateful that overwhelmed all the other feelings of being back in this place.

“You’re back early!” An older woman came out of the house, drying her hands on her apron before bringing Kagome in for a hug. “Oh, and who’s this?” Her eyes lit up with mischief and he saw the resemblance to her daughter. “Does Hojo know? I hope he does. I hope you rubbed your new boyfriend in his face and—”

“Mama!” Kagome hissed. “This is Inuyasha. My bodyguard.”

“Woah!” The boy came up to him with an eager speed that belied his small stature and frail frame. “Are these real?” He tugged on his ears and Inuyasha growled at him.

“Sōta!” their mother admonished, coming over with a smile. “Sorry about my son. But are they real, though?” Before he knew it, his other ear was being felt up, too.

“Mama! Sōta! Leave him alone.” Kagome stomped over, giving him an apologetic look as she herded her family into the house.

It was unavoidable that, while left to his own devices as he had been, he would start to remember everything from fifty years ago. The Goshinboku was right there. Its purifying powers thrummed dully, not so extreme as to make him become human, but enough that he felt a little uneasy. He couldn’t remember if it had always been that way, so it might just be him. If he squinted a little, he could see the scar of her arrow still. Drawn to it, he reached out, needing to feel that one piece of her, that evidence she had been with him…

“You can come in. I sent Sōta upstairs to do his homework and Mama’s making dinner.”

He stuffed his hand in his pocket, feeling stupid. Too many years had passed for him to still feel like this.

“We’ll make this quick. Can’t stand this fuckin’ place much longer.”

“Would it kill you to be normal for like five consecutive seconds? ‘Thank you for inviting me, Kagome. You have a lovely home and your family is delightful’. Huh? Is that so hard?”

Inuyasha followed her in, rolling his eyes at her back. It was like she could sense it, because she turned to glare at him before sitting down on the sofa with a huff. It was a loveseat. Too close. He would have to just stand.

“So. All the money you make goes towards this dump and your brother?”

“School fees, medical fees, shrine upkeep because yes, it’s always falling apart. Also I’m still paying the hospital fees for jii-chan and baa-chan.”

His gaze moved without his permission to the picture of the elderly couple on the mantle, happily embracing. There were no shadows on her face, no haunted look in her eyes. Content. She had been content. He was glad. Mostly.

“Yeah, that was them.” Her voice was soft and she came to stand next to him, making the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. “Baa-chan went first. I was fifteen. Jii-chan stuck around a few more years to see me graduate, but then he was gone. I should have been sad, but I was happy that they were going to be together again. The part that was most himself died with baa-chan and he was alone even when we were all together.”

“Is Kaede still alive?”

She gave him a look. “How do you know my aunt?”

Inuyasha snorted. “I guess Kikyo never talked about me much.”

Kagome shook her head.

Oh shit. “Like at all?”

She shook her head.

“Not even a fucking name drop!?”

She shook her head.

Inuyasha crossed his arms to stop himself from punching something. “Well, I guess you must not have been very close.”

“My grandma trained me!” she said, more than a little upset. “She said I was her only true successor. We spent every free moment of my time together until The Four Souls. She even named the group! We were incredibly close. How the hell did you know her?”

“Kikyo brought me to the SCA. We were partners.”

Kagome was stunned. “She never talked about that.”

Inuyasha leaned closer and for a second she thought he was going to sniff her again, but the look on his face was different this time.

“You look like her, you know.”

Their eyes clashed and something fluttered in her stomach. His expression was intense and filled with something she couldn’t yet understand. It was all so uncomfortable but she couldn’t look away for the life of her, not even when he got closer and closer.

“You must stay for dinner, Inuyasha!”

The both of them jumped at her mother’s entrance. Kagome took a few steps back from her bodyguard, feeling mysteriously embarrassed.

“Only ‘cause we got more to talk about,” he said, giving Kagome a grumpy look completely different from the one he’d just been piercing her soul with.

“Let me help you, Mama.”

Her heart rate didn’t calm back down again until she was busily chopping carrots in the kitchen.

Inuyasha had been about to kiss her, hadn’t he?

It had happened a few times before. Some guy got this stupid look on his face and she had to push him away and say something about having a boyfriend. But Hojo wasn’t her boyfriend. Not anymore. She was beginning to doubt he ever really was.

Inuyasha had also been really fixated on her grandma.

The knife came down harder and Kagome missed the side eye her mother gave her and the extra few inches of distance she put between them.

“…Everything okay, sweetheart?”

A splinter of wood came flying off the cutting board. “Yeah. Um, did baa-chan ever talk to you about her time in the SCA? Like, specifically about her partner or any hanyō she may have encountered.”

“No, she never really liked to talk about those days much, not even to your father. They were hard on her, you know. And jii-chan, because they were separated while she fought in the war.”

She stopped slicing when she nearly took her thumb off. “So, no stories? Nothing? She was a field agent during active warfare for nearly a year and she didn’t have anything to say about it?”

“By the time I met her, she was already the baa-chan you knew. Warm and loving. A little quiet. Very generous.”

When Kagome resumed prepping the veggies, this time in a much more reasonable fashion, Mrs. Higurashi figured it was safe to continue.

“She used to tell you this story when you were still in a crib. I doubt you even remember. Most of the time, you were knocked out already at the sound of her voice. It was about a hanyō with long silver hair and eyes of gold who tried to steal the most precious treasure of the shrine, promising to grant her every wish in return. It was difficult, but she managed to banish him and retain the treasure. The spirits of the shrine were so grateful that she had her every wish granted anyway.”

Dim memories of her grandmother stroking her hair and giving her a warm bottle while telling her a fairy story no one else knew came to her mind. Kagome hadn’t even known she’d known the story until her mother reminded her and didn’t think she would have ever connected it with Inuyasha if he hadn’t been so obvious about his obsession with her grandmother. Her mother poked her between the eyes when she began to furrow her brow.

“No wrinkles,” Mrs. Higurashi reminded her. “The longer we can put off the botox, the better. You don’t want to end up like Ayumi, do you?”

She frowned, remembering her once fresh-faced friend. “Absolutely not. Did Papa ever tell you anything about the war or even baa-chan and jii-chan before they got married?”

“I know about as much as you, my dear. Baa-chan and Aunt Kaede were orphaned and came here to the shrine when they were young. Baa-chan became the shrine protector and married jii-chan as soon as the war was over.”

Inuyasha listened to their hushed chatter from the living room, heart sinking into an old, dark pit with every word until he forced himself to tune them out. Kikyo had never mentioned him. Not to her husband, not to her son, not to her grandchildren. Had she really been so ashamed of being stupid enough to love him for a season of her life? How had she rationalized it to herself, he wondered, staring at the picture of her as he had never seen her. Happy. And old. With the man she had chosen over him. Also happy and old. Two things he would never be.

It was good she had left him. Now that he was older and no longer quite so achingly lonely and purposeless, he could see that he never could have given her the life she wanted. Something quiet. Something peaceful.

When they had met, he had been running for a long time, not even stopping long enough to realize he was no longer being chased. Back then, the woods surrounding the shrine had been so vast that he hadn’t even known the place of purity existed. Naively, he had thought himself safe. When he got his first glimpse of the woman in ghostly white and demonic red, he hadn’t the slightest clue that she was the most dangerous thing to him in the world.

“Halt, demon,” he heard her say in that silky soft voice just as he felt the arrow pierce him clean through the shoulder, pinning him to the trunk of the great tree. “I would never let one such as you close enough to even sniff the Shikon.”

“Fucking crazy bitch!” he cursed. How long had she been there? No one had ever snuck up on him before, especially some dumb human wench. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

Her smug look of triumph morphed into something else. Regret was too much, maybe embarrassment? Probably. Slight, though. On the same level as pulling a door that was clearly marked “Push” in front of witnesses.

“…You did not intend to steal the jewel?”

“I don’t give a fuck about your cheap, shitty jewelry.” He attempted to pull the arrow out but her holy powers still enveloped it, burning his palm. “I was hunting down a boar for dinner.”

She lowered her bow. “Oh. _Oh_. So you’re the one who’s been thinning out all the deer and boar and rabbits?”

He wondered if she was going to shoot him again for massacring her woodland friends. Ah, hell. He wouldn’t be much worse off.

“Yeah?”

“Good. They were eating the flowers my sister planted.”

In a few quick steps, she was standing in front of him. Her large gray eyes distracted him a little from the blinding pain of having the arrow pulled out. Immediately, he leapt up into the branches of the tree, glaring down at her warily.

“You’re welcome,” she called up at him.

What kind of twisted freak expected a thank you for pulling out a wrongfully fired projectile?

When a few days had gone by and he still had not been able to get that striking face out of his mind, he made some inquiries. A particularly chatty kodama told him everything he needed to know about the Shikon. A jewel spawned by a murderous miko during a bloody war centuries ago. It could grant any wish, anything he wanted, but there was a cost…

He stopped paying attention after that.

This was his chance. Inuyasha could finally become a full demon and he would never have to run again. He would have a place, carve one out for himself. And it would be so easy.

Or it would have been, if Kikyo wasn’t a fucking beast of a savant when it came to protecting the jewel from thieving hands.

Dozens of times he tried to steal that annoying fucking bauble from her. Even if she wasn’t such a nauseatingly powerful priestess, there was just something about her that made him weak and hesitate to strike a killing blow. So instead, Inuyasha watched her. The reasoning behind it was that instead of ambushing her and using violence to get what he wanted, he could take Kikyo by surprise with stealth.

He learned a lot during that time.

Kikyo lived at the shrine with her younger sister Kaede. They cohabitated with the family there but were not a part of it. Poor relations of these distant relatives, fourth cousins or some shit. The family’s only son followed Kikyo around like she was some kinda celebrity, mooning over her like he had the slightest chance with a woman like that. Ginzo was his name, and he was a few years younger than the pretty priestess, but they were important years.

And then one day, his claws were stretched out to her throat and her arrow was aimed at his eye. It was a dangerous situation, especially since she had already shot him three separate times in quick succession and he was pinned to that damned tree again. Why did they always seem to end up this way?

“Why don’t you just fucking kill me already?” he spat at her.

It shocked her enough that she lowered her arrow, relaxing her stance just the slightest bit.

“Because you’re like me. In the world but not a part of it. And I’d like to believe that someone like me could survive in a world like this and make a place for themselves.” She put away her arrows and gave him a grin. “And it’s not like you’ll ever beat me, anyway. You like me too much. It makes you stupid.”

She sashayed away and his eyes tracked every movement until the foliage swallowed her up and he was left to pull himself out of the tree trunk yet again.

Even now, he could hardly believe that the war broke out a mere few days later.

Things had been heating up for a while, but isolated as he was in the woods, the first he caught wind of it was when he stumbled upon a group of lower demons attacking his priestess mere steps away from their spot. They weren’t much trouble, and wouldn’t have been worth the time of day for Kikyo under normal circumstances, but they weren’t normal.

They were organized.

“Blades of blood!” Inuyasha growled, leaping down from the branches. He didn’t even need his sword for these small fry.

Kikyo used the opportunity to shoot off a few arrows while he took care of the rest. After a brief struggle, their enemies were vanquished.

“What the fuck was that about?” Inuyasha commented more than asked.

The priestess gave a weak laugh and clutched her forearm. The scent of her blood made his nostrils flare and he brought her close to him in a panic, examining her wound. One of the bastards had cut her, but not too deeply. She was bleeding sluggishly and he dabbed at the marks with his sleeve.

“I’m fine,” she said, taking back her arm as she shoved him away. “You don’t need to tend to me as though I’m dying.”

It was the first time he had seen her like this. Something was bothering her and had cracked her calm and cool exterior.

“You were bleeding,” he said as though she hadn’t noticed, feeling embarrassed. “I don’t know how humans work and you’re just a woman, so—”

“Just a woman who can kick your ass from here to eternity.”

Kikyo reached up and took the ribbon from her hair, wrapping it around where she was hurt. The breeze ruffled her silky strands and blew her scent to him, making him sway towards her just the slightest bit. Her eyes caught his and he froze. What had he been about to do? Something in her face shifted and it was lovely, even more appealing than before. Soft and tender. Reflecting him.

“The SCA asked me to join up.”

Inuyasha was more than a little pissed that their impossible-to-accurate-describe once in a lifetime intimate moment had been broken by such stupid words.

“Uh, okay?”

She looked away from him and started to ramble. It wasn’t until years later that he realized she had been just as nervous as him, maybe even more.

“I mean, I never thought about it before. The option was always there, I knew that, my entire family always made me aware of that, but I didn’t like their methods and I just thought they had become sort of unnecessary due to the rate of demonic attacks having been in a steady decline for literal centuries, but things are different now with the war and everything and there’s something new in the air, don’t you feel it? You’ve got to feel it. It isn’t good. And so I decided to sign on and I’d prefer it if I had someone I knew who I could rely on and maybe even trust, especially when it comes to—”

“Okay, and?”

It felt like forever, but she met his gaze again, and this time there was nothing but determination in eyes that were now the color of steel and just as unyielding.

“I’m asking you to enlist with me, Inuyasha.”

He didn’t even think about it.

“We can head over now, Kikyo.”

First, they were enemies. Then they were partners. While still in training, they became lovers. The day she asked him to marry her was the day before they were deployed, and he promised that he’d do anything, follow her anywhere. She was his purpose. His place in the world, as he was hers. They were supposed to be together forever as soon as the war came to an end. But then the war was over and so were they.

Fifty years.

Inuyasha felt something bitter in him rise up and choke him, even worse than he could remember it being when the loss was fresh. Standing here in what had been her happy home, surrounded by the things and people she had chosen over him, was the one form of torture he wasn’t sure he could withstand.

“Here’s some tea. I didn’t know what you liked so I just brought out my favorite.”

His ears perked up at the voice that was so like and unlike hers. Lighter. Louder. He grabbed the tiny cup and chipped saucer from her and sniffed it. Wild cherry, hibiscus, lemon. Fuck, it was his favorite too. A secret indulgence he considered too feminine to admit to.

“Checking for poison?” she asked, voice full of sarcasm as she sat back down in the loveseat and crossed her legs at a degree that showed him too much of what he was discovering he really, really wanted to see.

“Yes. And from now on, I’ll be doing the same for you.”

Kagome snorted. “You’re ridiculous. What kind of enemy would send a hundred demons after me and also poison my tea? The approaches differ hugely.”

“The kind of enemy that wants to kill you, idiot. Now would be a great time to give me that list of enemies, by the way.”

She was silent, staring down into her tea.

Inuyasha sighed in exasperation. He had been expecting something like this. “No enemies that you can think of, right? No one with a grudge. Everyone just loves you.”

She winced a little. “Uh, not exactly. I was actually just trying to count…”

“What the fuck?”

He was so incredulous that he sat down next to her, looking her over to see if there was something he had missed. Big guileless eyes, a small frame that didn’t exactly lack for curves, harmlessly pastel wardrobe. Like a porcelain doll brought to life. Who would ever hold anything against a creature like her?

Throwing a little pout his way that only further solidified his opinion of her as something that belonged in a Sanrio world of pink puffy nonsense, she put her tea down on the table.

“Okay, so, while I’m not a full-time SCA agent, I am still the highest-ranking priestess. That means that, on occasion, they’ve called me in for…interrogation.”

“You mean torture?”

“I guess, if you want to completely take nuance out of the equation. There’s also been the occasional necessary execution. I try to avoid it, but some of these guys are just so bad and there’s no other—”

“Stop trying to minimize your role in things and justify the things you’ve done. You’re a spiritual combat agent. You kill people who kill people. You’re one of the good guys, but not one of the good guys who can afford to keep their hands clean.”

He wasn’t expecting her to smile at him, especially not so tremulously. Had this really been weighing on her so heavily?

“I guess. But I’m not like you, though. I don’t enjoy it.”

Inuyasha rolled his eyes. “I haven’t enjoyed shit in decades. Don’t act like you know me.”

The sound of the front door slamming open interrupted their next fight before it could even happen.

“Sango!” Kagome said, looking surprised. “Where have you been?”

“What the hell took ya so long?”

Her manager took a few extra seconds just to glare at the both of them until they were so uncomfortable they were squirming.

“You. Left. Me.”

The twp of them looked at each other guiltily and Kagome irrationally felt like bursting into a fit of giggles. Why did it feel like they were a couple of kids who had just gotten busted by the teacher?

“I was your guardian before I was your manager, Kagome. Anywhere you go, I know. I’ve had a tracking device on you for years.”

“…Where is it?”

Sango smiled. “Classified.”

“She might even be worse than Kōga,” Inuyasha muttered under his breath.

Kagome had to cover her mouth after that.

“What’d I miss?”

“Inuyasha and I were just going through a list of possible enemies.”

“I’m gonna look through the Association’s files and check out every demon she’s ever purified.”

“Why didn’t you start at the obvious? The other three souls.”

Kagome gasped. “Sango, how could you? They’re my best friends!”

“Really?” The tall, sharp woman arched a brow. “Then why are they suing you, Kagome?”

And with that, she tossed a stapled pack of papers on the coffee table, rattling their teacups.

Inuyasha snatched it up while Kagome was still blinking at it, uncomprehending. Flipping through it, he gave the document a quick read. Once he was done, he whistled low and smacked the stack on his knee.

“Yep, gotta agree. You’re not BFFs. Not even fuckin’ close.”

Kagome grabbed the papers from him and read, tears in her wide eyes. By the time she was done, her hands were shaking.

Fuck, she was gonna lose it and cry. Fuck, he didn’t want to see that.

“D-don’t worry, Kagome,” he said. “I’ll take care of everything. Just don’t cry. Okay? Let me—”

“Those fucking cunts!” Kagome threw the papers she had been served across the room and shot to her feet. “After I carried them for years. _Years_! Our entire damn career!”

Inuyasha sat on the loveseat with his jaw dropped in shock, not even listening as Kagome continued to rant and rave, stomping around the living room. Just watching. He could only watch her, her cheeks pink and her eyes bright. Kikyo had been the type to hold things in, then implode, then take it out on whoever was close to her. But this was something else.

Sango bent at the waist in front of him, getting in his face. The look she was giving him let him know that she knew what was happening to him and she was just making sure that he knew she was watching. With a cough, he averted his eyes from the scene that had captivated him too briefly. Satisfied, the manager straightened and crossed her arms, smiling now that she knew a secret.

“There’s also the anti-fans to remember,” Sango said, cutting her client off. “Now that you’ve gone solo, they’ve almost doubled in number. I don’t even remember how many times they’ve tried to hack your personal email and social media.”

Inuyasha made a noise of exasperation. “So we’ve basically got every demon in the world hating your guts, your ‘friends’ hate your guts, and you’ve got stalkers who hate your guts.”

Kagome glared at him. “You make it sound like everyone hates me! Most people like me, you know. I was the lead voice for The Four Souls and did most of the backup vocals while also being the visual. I have more fans than the rest of the girls combined. That’s why I’m the only one of them who even got a decent offer to go solo.”

“With an attitude like that, no wonder they’re tryin’ to fuckin’ kill you.”

“You just focus on the demon attacks,” Sango broke in. “I’ll take care of everything else. Our biggest issue right now, career-wise, anyway, is the drama with the other souls. I’ll minimize all the negative attention this will bring, but some of this will go public, Kagome. It’s unavoidable. And hey, a little scandal is good for us at this point, anyway.”

“Isn’t your song scandalous enough? Any more and your reputation will be lower than your neckline.”

Kagome gasped in girlish offense, holding a hand to the slight bit of cleavage her dress showed.

“Gods, just get out already!”

“I’m supposed to guard you, idiot,” he scowled.

Her only response was the blinding pain that filled his body. It was over in a flash and then he was left very human and very, very pissed. Inuyasha narrowed his eyes at her, ready to pounce. How the fuck had she done that? She hadn’t even laid a hand on him this time.

“Sorry, Inuyasha,” Sango said, casually patting him on the shoulder like they were friends. “The shrine is warded against all demonic beings who don’t have Kagome’s permission to be here. And it looks like your invitation has been rescinded.”

“That’s all you had to say, bitch! Fine, I’m fuckin’ leaving. Send me your schedule. Or don’t and get attacked, see if I care.”

Inuyasha took his leave, making sure to slam the door behind him. That fucking bitch. He hadn’t even wanted to help her in the first place! How dare she just throw him out like that, like some kind of stray.

“Inuyasha, wait!”

He guessed he hated himself, because he stopped right in his tracks.

“You forgot your shoes.”

Inuyasha looked down. He was still wearing the house slippers. Ah fuck, now this whole thing was even worse. Without looking at her, he snatched his shoes, trying to retain some kind of dignity even though he knew he would think about this moment in those still, silent times right before he went to sleep for the rest of his cursed fucking life.

“See ya.”

“Wait.” She grabbed his sleeve. “Um, did you know my grandmother well?”

This was the last thing he wanted to talk about and he made sure his expression showed it.

“Thought I did.”

She let go of him and looked off into the distance. He followed her gaze and his heart jolted in his chest when he realized where she was staring. The Goshinboku.

“She died there, you know. I found her. Right at the foot of the god tree.”

“I… I didn’t know.”

“I have no idea what she was doing out there. Baa-chan had been confined to her bed for months. But somehow, she walked all the way out there, barefoot, kinda like you, in the snow. She wanted to die there.” Kagome turned to him. “You don’t have to leave if you don’t want to. I didn’t mean to purify you. Ever since baa-chan passed, my powers just get unpredictable whenever I lose control of my emotions. Sorry, Inuyasha.”

“It’s okay,” he mumbled. “I gotta go anyway.”

Every step he took was a monumental effort. Gods, but he hadn’t known. Sure, he knew Kikyo had died, but he didn’t know how or exactly when. She had died in their spot. She had dragged her failing, frail body to their spot and she had died there. Had she been thinking of him? Had she regretted leaving him behind? Inuyasha would give anything to have been there in that moment. Anything to turn back time and stop it, right when she had asked him to join the SCA. Fuck his pride, fuck his lack of confidence. He would have kissed her. He should have kissed her.

Inuyasha left the shrine in a fog of misery, completely unaware of the man with the camera who followed his every move.

**O\o/O**

It was around noon before he woke up with a start, knocking down the bottles of sake that surrounded him on his desk. What the fuck happened last night? Inuyasha creased his brow, trying to remember over the pounding headache that resounded against the walls of his cranium. Purification. That bitch… Then he walked home. No, he stopped at the liquor store before going back to his apartment. Then he sat down in front of his laptop and drank and drank and drank while googling Kagome Higurashi.

So why the fuck was he staring at his own face if he had entered her name in the search bar?

A loud buzzing made him jump again and he looked at the cracked screen of his phone. Why the fuck was headquarters calling him?

“Yeah?” he barked, already annoyed and ready to fight.

“Inuyasha.” Something had taken the teacher’s pet quality out of Hojo’s voice. “I need to see you in my office immediately.”

“What—”

“Immediately.”

And he hung up.

What the fuck had crawled up his ass? Inuyasha grumbled curses to himself and vowed for the thousandth time to go into private practice. He had better things to do than get chewed out by some pretty golden boy who was closer to high school than he was to real adulthood over some fucking technicality. Out of spite, he took his time getting to the office, stopping at a convenience store and getting a hangover cure and breakfast sandwich.

When he walked through the door, there was no flurry of activity like he had come to expect over the years. People were at their desks, not socializing and not really working either. Was he imagining it, or was everyone staring at him? Wait, had they been talking about him before he walked in? What the fuck was up with everyone today?

He shrugged and took another bite of his sandwich.

“Make it fast, Hojo, I got shit to do so just write me up and save the lecture for an email.” One he definitely wouldn’t read. Maybe he’d even print it out and tear it up just to feel better.

The half-demon stopped in his tracks. Kagome was in the office and she looked stressed. Her manager was there too and she looked absolutely fucking pissed.

“Sit down, please, Inuyasha.”

Hojo’s vacantly pleasant expression was more a mask than it usually was. Things were so weird that Inuyasha actually did what he said.

“…What’s wrong, Kagome? Was there another demon attack?”

She laughed joylessly. “Oh, there was an attack, alright. But not by demons. By the press.”

“And that has to do with me how?”

“It has to do with _you_ because it’s about _you_.” Sango slid a sleazy gossip rag on Hojo’s desk and Inuyasha leaned over to look at it.

His face was on the cover.

The photograph was blurry and his features were somewhat indistinct, but he immediately recognized his human self and his surroundings. This must have been taken as he had been leaving the Higurashi shrine. It took him a few seconds to put everything together, but then he read the headline.

**_THE FIRST SOUL’S SECRET SOULMATE: WHO IS KAGOME’S SQUEEZE?_ **

Inuyasha’s stomach heaved and he almost blew chunks all over Hojo’s pristine office.

“How could you jeopardize Kagome’s career like this?” his boss asked, looking physically pained. “Inuyasha, I chose you to be her guard because I thought you’d been around long enough not to make mistakes like this. Why couldn’t you go out the back way? What were you thinking?”

“I wasn’t.”

Sango’s phone went off. “Hello, Mr. Mushin! So good to hear from you. Yes, yes, it’s everywhere, I know. No, not a word. Trust me, Kagome is focused on her album and tour and, as always, her fans. She would never sneak around with some idiot. That was just one of her brother’s visiting nurses. Yes, a misunderstanding…”

From the sound of it, she had already done this quite a few times already.

“Your lack of professionalism may have permanently stained Kagome’s reputation,” Hojo continued. “Do you have anything to say for yourself? Anything in your defense?”

He continued to stare at his picture. It was the face of a man who had only just realized he’d lost everything he’d never even had. And here he was being attacked by a kid over a moment of weakness?

Fuck that.

“You ever fuckin’ think that this shit is more inconvenient for _me_ than it is for _her_?”

Hojo and Kagome both stared at him, confused.

“You can explain me away. You can go on one date with a boy band member and everyone will forget all about this. But I’ve lived a long time, Kagome, and I’ve got more enemies than even you. That’s my face everywhere, and I’m fucking _human_. Worse, they know I’m linked to you. They know they can come after me if they come after you. Now everyone who hates us hates both of us. And who’s gonna have to sleep with one eye open to make sure we both stay alive? Me.”

“Fuck,” Kagome said in a hushed breath.

Hojo looked at her askance and for a second the half-demon thought he’d correct her on her unladylike use of language.

“Be that as it may, Inuyasha, all of it could have been avoided if you had remembered basic training and left in an inconspicuous manner.”

Inuyasha grinned, baring his fangs at the boy. “Know what? Fuck it. You go ahead and protect her since you obviously wanna be the one caught up in her scandals. I’m out.”

Kagome stared at Inuyasha’s retreating back, the image burned into her retinas even after he had gone.

“He has a point,” she said, voice low so as to not interrupt Sango’s increasingly argumentative phone call. “Wouldn’t it be better if it were you and I together, Hojo? We work well together. We’re in sync. And I trust you.”

He sighed, exasperated, and ran his fingers through his hair. “Kagome, you know I can’t. They need me here.”

“You do paperwork, Hojo. Hell, you can even create an app that assigns cases and sends them to you for review and then just delegate that.”

“We aren’t going to talk about this.”

“Okay. Then let’s talk about us.”

His expression immediately shuttered. There had been a slight glimpse of the old him, of the boy she had loved so much, in that second of his frustration with Inuyasha. But now there was nothing. Only the hereditary figurehead of the Spiritual Combat Association.

“There is no us. Not anymore. I made that clear to you a year ago.”

“You didn’t make anything clear!” she said, voice rising and breaking. “Gods, Hojo, you tell me one thing and then do another. You can’t tell me you never want to see me again outside of work and then send me flowers and chocolates on Valentine’s Day and a diamond necklace on my birthday and tell me you lo—”

An alarm blared and the room flashed with red and white light.

“We’ll finish this later, Mushin,” Sango said, voice already reverting to slayer mode. Ending the call, she asked, “What’s going on?”

Hojo was already looking at the alert on his computer.

“A disturbance on SCA property. There are a…” Hojo squinted at the screen, not believing his eyes. “Thousand. A _thousand_ low-level demons. And it’s looking like this is just the first wave.” He looked up at Kagome, all business. “We’re going to need all hands on deck on this one. You’re going to have to go to the site, Kagome.”

“Fine,” she bit out. “I’ll go. And I’ll take them all down. _Myself_.”

“That’s ridiculous!” Sango said. “You can’t—”

“I will.” Kagome crossed the room, hands shaking with anger and adrenaline. “I don’t need a guard. And I don’t need you, Hojo. I’m more powerful than I know, just like baa-chan always said. I’ll show you all I can protect myself.”

She sounded so confident that she almost believed herself.


	3. Baby One More Time

**Three: Baby One More Time**

Tears blurred Kagome’s vision as she ran from Hojo’s office.

“Kagome, wait!” Hojo called after her. “You’re not thinking!”

“ _You’re_ not thinking!” she shot back childishly over her shoulder.

She was so concentrated on the door that she hardly even noticed when she bumped shoulders with her former hanyō bodyguard.

“Watch it!” he hissed at her. “Wait, where the fuck are ya goin’?”

When she didn’t stop, he grabbed her wrist, tugging her to him. The soft gold of Inuyasha’s eyes was almost concerned. Coupled with how his puppy ears were pinned flat against his head due to the still blaring alarms, it was almost cute. Kagome glanced longingly at the exit. She had been so close. A macho guy like him would never let her charge into battle unequipped and unfocused as she was.

With a sigh, she turned her best puppy dog eyes on him. “I want to go to the site. I’m so mad I’m going to take out all the demons myself.” Her chin dimpled in determination as she glared at Inuyasha, daring him to stop her.

“Fuck yeah!” he said. “What the fuck are ya waiting for, climb on.”

Kagome blinked at him. “…You’re not going to tell me to stay behind?”

He snorted. “And why the fuck would I do that?”

“Because I’m a girl?”

“You’ve already kicked my ass. It’d be nice to see someone else get taken down by Strawberry Shortcake, too.”

Hojo approached them, looking caught between annoyed and concerned. “Kagome, at least take some armor, maybe even your arrows—”

She climbed onto Inuyasha’s offered back, briefly considering flipping Hojo the bird before deciding that the best form of attack in this instance was the cold shoulder.

“You better know where we’re going, because there’s no way in hell I’m going back and asking Hojo where the site is.”

“Keh, I heard where everyone else was headed. I’ve fought there before.”

There was something different in his voice, in how tense he was. Kagome found herself unconsciously trying to soothe him, her hands massaging his shoulder muscles.

“Is it far?”

“Just outside the city. Maybe you’ve even been there before. Kikyo mighta become someone who’d want you to see it.”

Kagome furrowed her brow. Her grandmother rarely ventured far from the shrine, saying it was where she was happiest.

“Where?”

“Where she grew up.” And where they broke up, though he didn’t want to mention that.

“She grew up on the shrine with Jii-chan.”

“Before.”

His words were final and they spoke no more while he leaped and flew over the earth, covering a lot more ground than their fellows since there was no traffic in their style of transportation. A few times, Kagome almost asked him about his relationship with Kikyo, but it wasn’t like he was her bodyguard anymore, anyway. And aside from that, she didn’t care about his unrequited love for her grandma. It had to be unrequited, because Baa-chan always loved Jii-chan and who would ever like Inuyasha anyway?

“We’re here,” Inuyasha said, unceremoniously dumping her to the ground.

“Ow!” Kagome said, falling on her butt. She had been so lost in her thoughts that she hadn’t even had the time to reach out and break her fall. Her tailbone was bruised, she just knew it by the way the whole area was numb and vibrating.

Inuyasha was already walking away.

“Hey!” she called out, scrambling to her feet and catching up to him. Feeling a little more than vindictive, she jumped up and tugged on his ear until he bent down to her height, cursing and glaring at her.

“What the fuck, bitch!” Inuyasha attempted to squirm out of her grasp, but that only made her twist.

Kagome didn’t let go until she realized that the shiny thing he was holding was a gun.

“What the fuck, Inuyasha!?”

“That’s what I said, idiot,” he grumbled, massaging his hurting ear. “Look, the swarm’s on the outskirts of the property concentrated on the cave. Let’s head there.”

“Why do you have a _gun_?”

“Why are you wearing heels to a fuckin’ fight?”

“It’s not the same!”

With a roll of his eyes and a heavy sigh, he cocked the gun and shot it into the air. Kagome shrieked and backed up, only to stop in her tracks when she saw a rush of golden light leave the gun instead of a bullet.

“This is Tessaiga. It used to be my sword, but a blade ain’t exactly the most inconspicuous weapon of choice these days. The SCA converted it for me when I joined up.”

Kagome didn’t know if it was right for her to be jealous that she had just gotten a notebook of SCA policy and a badge upon joining, but she was regardless.

Just as she opened her mouth to throw back some smart reply, she felt a chill run down her spine.

“There’s something else here,” she said, voice hushed without her realizing she had changed it. “It’s not far, but in the opposite direction of where you were headed.”

Inuyasha sniffed the air before giving her a dubious look. “No there ain’t. The action is back by the cave.”

“Well excuse me for trusting the abilities of the most powerful priestess in existence over a dog’s nose.”

“I’d put money on nearly three centuries of battle experience and a heightened sense of smell that can locate youki anywhere within a ten-mile radius over a little girl with more unearned confidence than skill.”

“Unearned confidence?” she repeated aghast, hands on her hips. “Need I remind you that I am the highest ranking spiritual combatant in the association and have a higher body count than the next three spiritualists combined?”

He snorted. “Oh, I don’t doubt your ‘body count’.” Before she could retort, he grabbed her wrist and started pulling. “We’re going this way.”

“Let go of me!”

Some of Kagome’s power escaped the tightly coiled knot where it rested inside her and shot down her arm and out through her fingertips, jolting Inuyasha with enough targeted energy to make his flesh burn.

“Ow! That fuckin’ hurt, you bitch!”

“You quit back in the office, remember? So you go your way and I’ll go mine.”

“You? Against so many demons they called in _every_ — _single_ — _agent_?” he hissed, holding his wounded hand.

“It’s a challenge, but I know I’m more than able to rise to it. I don’t need you, I don’t need Hojo, and I don’t need the rest of the agents. I’ve always been more than enough.”

Having made her point, Kagome turned around and walked away.

“You’re going the wrong way— Aw, who gives a fuck anyway,” he finished in a mumble. Even so, he watched her back until she disappeared through the overgrown wall of shrubs that was the first layer of what he knew to be a large thicket.

A demon’s roar sounded in the distance and he felt Tessaiga pulse. That’s right, he had a duty. There was no time to spare a thought for stupid girls, whether past or present. And she was going the wrong way, anyhow. Not even an inkling of danger was coming from the direction she’d so stubbornly pursued. Good. That way, she couldn’t get herself in any trouble. Even if she did, the bitch was more than capable of handling it on her own, he reminded his conscience. His still stinging skin was proof of that.

Inuyasha rushed to the cave, glad the two of them had separated so he would not have to go back to the wreckage of the house where Kikyo had left him.

**O\o/O**

Kagome was only a few feet away when she began to question the wisdom of heading off into unknown territory with no more protection than her power which was growing harder and harder to control. At least if she had thought to stop by the shrine and get some damn decent shoes… But there was no use thinking of all the things she should have done. Now, she needed to follow her instincts and destroy the biggest threat she had ever felt before.

She shivered even though there was no breeze and the sun shone bright overhead. The malice, the hatred, the power so great it was almost cruel, all of it had her more on edge than she usually was when entering a fight. It had to be because of stupid Inuyasha. He had to have been lying that he hadn’t sensed the evil mass waiting for them. Coward. Fine, let him pick off the easy targets while she took care of the rest.

The shrubbery grew thicker the more she walked, and soon she was afraid she wouldn’t be able to find the small trail she had started to follow. Then all at once, it was gone. No vegetation, not even weeds or scraggly patches of yellow grass struggling to survive. There was nothing.

Just the charred remains of what had once been a large house.

It must have been beautiful when it was whole, she thought to herself as she cautiously put pressure on one rotted step with the heel of her shoe. A dream home for a lovely family. Kagome tried to fill her head with thoughts of sunshine and laughter as she carefully picked her way over the threshold, pushing aside the splintered remnants of a door. What the hell had happened here? All she knew for sure was that it was some kind of fiery explosion. Maybe they were rich meth heads or something—

Kagome screamed as something brushed against her face.

“ _Ohmygods_ , spiders!”

The entire place was covered in spiderwebs, old and new, and she had walked right into one of them. What little sunlight filtered through the greasy blackened windows illuminated a horror movie set as soon as her eyes adjusted to the dark. Silvery threads hanging from the ceiling, funneling across the floor, creeping across corners. What was perhaps more disturbing was that she saw no prey wrapped in silken cocoons, no arachnids hanging from their work, no evidence of spiders at all apart from the cobwebs themselves.

No life.

Just the menacing, evil pressure that had called her here in the first place.

“Show yourself!” Kagome commanded. The sooner she got this over with, the better. This place was too creepy.

There was nothing that could have warned her. No sound, no movement, no feeling. One minute, she was standing in what she guessed had been the foyer, and the next she was on the ground in the middle of the room. Kagome saw her blood pool before she felt the pain.

“A priestess,” a voice said. It came from everywhere. “A _Higurashi_.”

Kagome brought herself up to her knees, feeling a burning pain in her shoulder. A quick glance told her she had been pierced through. But there had been no bullet fired, no whistle of an arrow. Throwing out a hand, she blasted a quick shot of her power into the shadows. It did nothing other than briefly illuminate a figure covered in webs with glowing red eyes.

“Stop playing and do your part, little priestess. You might even survive,” the voice said. “I’m not here for you.”

Kagome kept her eyes trained on the evil red pinpricks, not knowing what else to do. Should she lure him out and kill him? Perhaps he was sensitive to the sun. Try to keep him cornered? It could work to her advantage that he had nowhere to run. Gods, if only her Baa-chan were here. She would give anything for her gentle wisdom, direction, and encouragement.

Something squeezed against her ankle and she was dragged forward across the floor, charred splinters piercing her skin and bleeding her yet again. Then she was face to face with it. The thing. Suddenly she was glad she could only see its eyes. It was like a mummy, withered in its spiderweb wrappings. With its dry, gray skin, she was inappropriately reminded of when Jii-chan had given her that kappa’s paw.

“Maybe not,” she said, “but I’m here for you.” Forcing herself to overcome her disgust, she put a hand around his throat and channeled all her power inside him, not stopping when even his bandages began to light with flames.

The thing parted its sooty lips and smiled, showing her a mouth filled with too-sharp, too-green teeth. It was the last thing she remembered before pink light exploded behind her eyes.

**O\o/O**

Inuyasha easily cut his way through the mob of demons that had started to stream out of the cave as soon as he approached. But it felt wrong. He knew he was a confident bastard, but wasn’t this almost too easy?

It was, he realized as he gutted something that looked like a cross between a snake and an ox. They were coming at him one at a time. Sure, they crowded around and hissed and made it look like they were gonna lunge, but no one made a move until he was done with what was in front of him. They were uncomfortably restrained and organized, like soldiers in a play.

Everything was wrong. He hadn’t seen anything like this since…

“Inuyasha!” Sango called from the skies, throwing a boomerang into the crafted chaos. Jumping off her nekomata mount, she easily landed on the ground and pulled out twin daggers, cutting and slicing. “Where’s Kagome?”

Oh shit.

“I gotta go. You take care of this.” Other agents were already arriving so he didn’t feel compelled to help out the slayer-cum-manager.

Even if he didn’t have Kagome’s scent to follow, he knew exactly where to go. She had been heading for the house. None of the old memories that had tortured him even flitted through his mind as he jumped from tree to tree. All he could think about was Kagome and if she was okay.

“Stupid, stubborn little…”

Inuyasha trailed off as he came to the end of the wood.

The house was different. Shockingly so. It wasn’t so much something that could be seen by the eyes but instead felt. Everything was warped. There was an abrupt end to all vegetation in what looked to be a perfect circle around the building. He suddenly remembered hearing how the house had burned for seven days but still stood. At the time, he had not believed it. He had been there and seen the fire and he had known it would be nothing but ruined ash.

But it was there. Damaged and blackened, but there.

A scream broke him out of his reverie and he sprang into action, storming into the house even as he saw it explode in a flash of pink light. It sizzled his skin and he started to scream, too. Even so, he didn’t stop, pushing himself forward on failing limbs.

Human limbs.

As suddenly as it started, it stopped. There was no light, no pain. Nothing other than a dark, dusty house. Inuyasha cursed his human eyes and blinked fast, squinting as he tried to force his eyes to adjust.

A whimper he was just barely able to hear beckoned him forward and he rushed across the room. Kagome was curled up on the floor, bleeding.

“Fuck!” he cursed. Inuyasha shook her shoulder as gently as he could, hands shaking with fear. Had he been too late? Oh gods, but this was just like before. The same place, same position…

“Inuyasha?” she whispered.

Her eyes fluttered open and he had never been so glad.

“Can you stand?”

Kagome smiled at him and it was loopy enough for him to know she wasn’t all there. That and how pale her skin had gotten told him it was probably an effect of the blood loss.

“I did it!” she said. “I defeated it. Just me. All by myself.”

“Uh huh,” he grunted, picking her up. “Put your arms around my neck.”

She frowned at him but did as he said. “I don’t need your help. You’re not my guard anymore. And we hate each other, anyway.”

“Shut up before I drop ya again.”

He’d question her later, he decided as her eyes shut again and she lost consciousness. About who she had fought—or _what_ —and how it had all gone down. But she was hurt and she needed to get out of there. Hell, he needed to get out of there.

“Inuyasha!”

The currently human half-demon nearly did drop the girl at the sound of his name. That hadn’t come from her. It wasn’t her voice, and she didn’t have that kind of hate inside her. Only one person had said his name like that, and it had only been once.

He turned around, not trusting his ears. Then he didn’t trust his eyes.

“K-Kikyo?”

She looked just as she had then. Face smudged with ash, her shirt torn ragged at the shoulder and down across her back from a clawed attack. Even her bow and arrows were there in the bag with the fraying strap on the floor. Just in case the sight of his dead former fiancée, who had lived a long and happy life, suddenly in front of him as young and alive as she had been when he saw her last wasn’t enough to make him think he had received a nasty blow to the head, a wound opened up in her shoulder and started to gush blood that smelled like dirt and smoke.

“Is that why you did this to me? You tried to kill me so you could be with her?”

His mouth remained open but no sound came out. His brain wasn’t up to the task of responding with words. Hell, what the fuck could you say when your dead ex accused you of cheating on her with her granddaughter? Then his brain processed the rest of what she had said.

“Wait, kill you? Kikyo, I didn’t try and kill you. I’d never hurt you, I loved you.”

She staggered forward a step, face twisted with rage that wounded him as deeply as her arrows once had. Her dark eyes were shining with unshed tears and he felt inexplicably guilty, as though he really had done the things she had accused him of.

“You’re a liar! All of you, all the demons do nothing but lie!” Then she stopped, looking almost calm. It was scarier than it had been before. “You became human for her.”

It was something they had talked about. Once, just once, when she had asked him to marry her.

It had been the night before they were set to go up against the demons who had been organizing and rebelling. They had just completed their training and been awarded with their badges and weapons. His Tessaiga had been upgraded into a pistol and her arrows had been tweaked so they would always return to her. They had sneaked out long after they were supposed to be sleeping in their dormitories, meeting at the most private and romantic place they could at the moment: the obstacle course.

Kikyo had been sitting in the _yokozuwari style, looking pretty and proper even as she leaned against the Spartan wall. Inuyasha joined her, getting as close as he dared, which even after everything they had been through together was still about a foot away._

_“So,” she said, breaking the silence. “Tomorrow’s going to be a big day.”_

_“Yeah.”_

_His stomach was in knots. They had never sneaked off before, Kikyo being too fond of rules and him usually breaking so many that he was forced to spend his after-training time scrubbing floors or something. But now here they were together and he wondered if this time would be the one he mustered up the courage to actually touch her._

_“What are you going to do after the war?”_

_Maybe it was stupid, but Inuyasha had never thought about that. He’d never really thought about the future in general. Every day had always been about the now, about surviving._

_He shrugged. “Dunno. Stay on as an agent, I guess.”_

_Her brow furrowed and he instantly knew he had said the wrong thing. “Really? Don’t you want a normal life?”_

_He didn’t even know what that would look like. “I like the SCA. I’m good at fighting.”_

_“But what if you didn’t have to fight?”_

_Inuyasha gave her a look. Pointing one clawed finger at his ears, he said, “Hanyō, remember?”_

_“Well, what if you weren’t? What if we used the Shikon?”_

“Keh, all the times I tried to steal the jewel from ya and you’re gonna hand it to me?” he joked.

But Kikyo nodded. “Yes.”

“Wait, huh?”

“Think about it, Inuyasha.” She became animated, her cheeks taking on a rosy glow the more she talked in a way he found far too enchanting. “We could use the jewel. Only instead of erasing your human half, we erase your demon half. And then we could be together. We could get married and since the jewel was used for something good it would disappear and I wouldn’t have to guard it anymore. We could be happy.”

Happy. He had thought they were already happy. “I…”

Kikyo bridged the gap between them and grabbed his hand, holding it between both of hers. Her smile was small and her eyes were almost pleading.

“We could be so happy together, Inuyasha,” she repeated. “All we need to do is make the wish and we can have everything we ever wanted.”

He found himself nodding. “Sure. Yeah. Yes. Anything, Kikyo.”

With a hushed laugh, she threw herself at him, embracing him so tightly it made him blush. They stayed like that, holding each other and making plans until dawn. It had been the best night of his life.

Inuyasha hadn’t thought about that night in years. But here was Kikyo, the same Kikyo that had loved him, inexplicably alive and young and wow, so fucking angry.

“Look,” Inuyasha said. “I know this ain’t real and all, but I never lied to you, Kikyo. You’re the one who betrayed our promise, made the jewel vanish, and left me. You fell in love and had a happy life with someone else. Now you’re dead and I don’t have time for your bullshit.”

“Dead?” Kikyo echoed, the word so quiet he barely heard it. For a moment, she looked confused, but then the anger was back. “More lies. Is that all you can do?”

The longer they lingered, the more his demon nature returned. He was able to smell and hear better. And his senses were telling him some startling things.

Kikyo had no heartbeat. Kikyo was stone cold. Kikyo smelled overwhelmingly of smoke and dirt and, most concerning of all, Kagome’s blood. His sight had sharpened as well and he saw a place where the floor had fallen through and there was nothing but dirt. Dirt that had a person-shaped pit complete with arms and legs. Right in the spot where Kikyo had been almost mortally wounded fifty years ago.

Oh fuck. This wasn’t a dream.

“Listen, Kikyo, you’ve been dead for years,” he said, trying to edge away from the reanimated woman. “You must feel that things are all wrong. When we were last in this house, you were hurt and you almost died but you recovered and that was _fifty years ago_. This girl, Kagome, she’s your granddaughter. And right now she needs help. She’s hurt.”

“Shut up!” she screeched, and the earth seemed to shake. Inuyasha turned to run but the doorway had been blocked over with thick ropes of spider silk. He punched out at it but the threads cut into his hand like steel blades. Tessaiga was out of the question as he was still too human to use it. “I was too weak to do it then, but not anymore. I’ll—” She paused, fixating on Kagome. “Now I see why you left me. You are using her just as you used me. You seek the jewel, even now.”

“What?” he asked. “Kikyo, you destroyed the jewel.”

She laughed. “Really? I was a fool once, but no longer. Especially when the proof of your lies is right in front of me.”

Kikyo darted out her hand and plunged it into Kagome’s side. Kagome’s eyes opened and her mouth dropped in a silent gasp of what he knew to be excruciating pain. Inuyasha leaped across the room, fumbling as he pressed a hand to Kagome’s wound, desperately trying to stop the bleeding.

“Fuckfuck _fuck_ ,” he cursed in a panic. “Breathe, Kagome, just breathe and stay with me, okay?”

“I don’t know whether to be angry that your involvement with her obviously wasn’t just about the jewel or relieved,” Kikyo said. She seemed sad as she gazed down at her gory blood-covered hand. With each passing second, her expression grew more detached. “Maybe I saw that good in you. But it is too little, too late. For you and for your whore.”

“Gods damn it, Kikyo, do you have any idea what you just did?”

“I took back what is mine.” She held her hand up and he saw the blood-slicked orb shine with a light of its own. “Obviously, you never were. Tell me this, whore, how did you manage to steal the jewel from me?”

Kagome was still speechless, choking on every tiny puff of air she could manage. There were tears in her eyes from the effort and Inuyasha pressed her closer, eyes darting around the room for a way out. Cobwebs had covered every surface. He’d have to destroy Kikyo to get them out of there alive, and he didn’t know if he could.

“I don’t want to hurt you, Kikyo,” he said, voice low and slow. “If you are Kikyo, then I know you wouldn’t want a helpless girl to die, would you?”

“How did you get the jewel?” Kikyo repeated.

To his surprise, Kagome managed to turn her head. There was a spark of recognition in her eyes but no shock, no fear.

“What jewel, you psycho zombie?” Kagome croaked. “I’m with the SCA. If Inuyasha can’t do it, then I’ll be the one to take you down, just like I took down your accomplice Onigumo.”

Inuyasha and Kikyo both blanched at the name.

Kikyo backed away from them against a wall. Her eyes darted around the room, searching for the monster. “He’s here? Naraku is here?”

“That’s impossible. We killed Naraku fifty years ago. We killed him here!”

“I know Naraku’s dead,” Kagome said in a tone of voice that did more than imply she thought the both of them were stupid. “I _said_ Onigumo. That burned up spiderweb guy told me his name before I purified him. I’m really tired and want to leave, so you know what? You’re dead, too.”

Kagome pointed a finger in Kikyo’s direction. Inuyasha waited, but nothing happened.

“What the…” She shook her hand, coughing with the effort. “What did you do to me, you bitch?”

Kikyo glared at her. “I’m sorry, did you think you were really a priestess? You’re nothing more than a thieving slut. You were drawing on the power of the jewel. Without it, you are less than nothing.”

Kagome looked down at her hand, dirty and sticky with blood. It shook with the effort of keeping it aloft. And now she was starting to feel cold.

“Nothing?” she repeated.

The creature looked at her with disdain from her grandmother’s eyes that had always viewed her with love. It cut her to the core.

“The both of you may congratulate yourselves for having come this far. None of the others that attempted to steal the jewel had been so innovative. At least you will die knowing you succeeded at being the best of the worst filth that came after the Shikon.”

Inuyasha turned his back on Kikyo, facing the wall and protecting Kagome with his body.

“This sure ain’t how I pictured dying,” he muttered.

“Then kill her, you moron,” Kagome said, her voice even fainter than before. She was fading fast and he could see she was struggling to keep alert.

“Kikyo. At last you came.”

Inuyasha turned, stomach clenching with dread.

“I killed you!” he said. “This can’t be happening. You’re dead, Kikyo’s dead. You can’t be here.”

“You tried,” Naraku said. He wore webs as a garment and looked horrifically burned. The sight of him that weak gave him courage. He was mostly Onigumo, and that meant there were a lot more weaknesses to exploit.

Inuyasha jumped forward, temporarily forgetting that he was mostly human as well, and drew Tessaiga, pointing it at him. Kikyo beat him to the punch and Naraku was engulfed in a silvery blue light, again burning him to nothing.

“Meet me in our spot,” his voice rustled through the spiderwebs. “Come to me, Kikyo.”

Kikyo sneered. “A puppet. Some things never change.”

“Naraku has been dead for fifty years,” Inuyasha said. It felt like he had taken a trip through the looking glass. Or a fuckin’ DeLorean.

“We never should have met again, Inuyasha,” Kikyo said, her voice catching. “You should have kept your word.”

The obvious pain she was feeling made his heart clench in answer. While their parting had been miserable, it was nowhere near this level of anguish. Kikyo had been calm when she’d broken up with him. There had been no accusations of attempted murder or cheating or trying to take the jewel. She had even recommended him for advancement within the SCA but he had turned it down, wanting to stay in the field.

What had happened to her at the moment of her near-death?

“I will not hold back,” Kikyo said, raising her hand that still held the jewel. “You will not be temporarily human. I will destroy your deformed soul itself in its entirety.”

“Do it, then!” Inuyasha said. “I haven’t lived since the day I lost you. Might as well make it official.”

That stayed her hand somewhat and Kikyo looked at him, seeming to reconsider. It was short-lived, however, and he saw the moment her posture changed. She was going to kill him.

An arrow pierced her chest and pink fireworks lit up the room.

Kikyo took a step back and looked down, seeming more amazed at the sight than anything else.

“It doesn’t hurt,” she said, looking up at him. “Inuyasha, why doesn’t it hurt?”

The blood that flowed from the wound was red, but when it dripped down and hit the floor, it turned to dirt.

“I might not have my powers,” Kagome said, breathing raggedly as she stumbled into place beside him, “but I can still shoot a fucking arrow.”

Kikyo’s back hit the webs that had grown across the doorway and they disappeared. Clutching the feathered end of the projectile stuck firmly in her chest, she pulled it out and threw it aside. Giving him one last look that clearly communicated her pain, confusion, fear, and the love he had not seen in so long, Kikyo left. And he would have followed, but Kagome swayed and he caught her.

“Kagome!” He patted her cheek stained with blood, dirt, and tears, willing her to open her eyes. “Are you okay?”

“Can’t…move…”

“That’s what I’m here for, wench.” Inuyasha picked her up again, grateful beyond words that she was still alive. “I’ll send someone after Kikyo—or whatever that was. A revenant with the jewel is not what we need right now.”

“She doesn’t have it.” Kagome smiled with blue-tinted lips. “No one does.”

“How much blood have you lost?”

“Look down. Where she dropped the arrow.”

Inuyasha did, stooping down and looking at the arrow that had once been covered in blood but was now smeared with dirt. There was a sparkle at the tip and he poked at it. A shard of what looked like colored glass was stuck to his finger. It took him a second to put it all together, but when he did, he nearly dropped Kagome.

“…Did you break the fucking Shikon?”

She was still smiling, and that gave him hope even as her shallow breathing and cool temperature concerned him.

“Shattered it. Good luck taking over the world now, supervillains.”

He groaned and tucked the shard in his pocket, bounding outside.

“Can’t even leave you alone for five minutes, can I?”

She was already passed out again.

**O\o/O**

Everything smelled like her favorite food and Bengay. Kagome knew where she was before she even opened her eyes.

“Is the oden done yet?” she croaked, struggling to sit up.

“Careful! I just finished changing your bandages.”

Kagome blinked blearily until her the old woman came into focus. “How’d I get here, Aunt Kaede? The last thing I remember was taking out that creepy mummy demon.”

“You’ve been sleeping for a week.” The voice was deep, as gravelly as it was unexpected. “The hag thought you were dead when I brought ya. Almost got my ass purified for good.”

“A _week_!” Kagome tried to get out of the bed only to be gently pushed back down by two pairs of hands. “Sango’s gonna be so pissed! I’ve got interviews, meetings, filming, shows—”

“You’ve gotta shut up and heal.”

“Much as it pains me to say it, Inuyasha is right.” Kaede tucked the edges of the quilt around Kagome. “I have never seen anyone as drained as you were survive. And you were injured physically as well. Some would have died just from that.”

What happened after she had purified that monster came back to her all at once. “Inuyasha, that thing… It looked like… I know it couldn’t have been, but it just looked so much like _her_.” Kagome clutched the blankets tighter to her and brought them all the way up to her chin. She was so cold all of a sudden, and so incredibly sad.

Inuyasha released a breath and sat down on the bed at her feet. “I know. It was…unexpected.”

“Baa-chan coming back from the dead is a little more dramatic than just ‘unexpected’.”

“That thing is not my sister,” Kaede said, suddenly fierce. “It is nothing more than animated pain and memories.” Her remaining eye shone with certainty and wounded anger. “How dare he. After all these years, to show his despicable face now. And to disturb my sister’s rest!”

“She didn’t know who I was,” Kagome said, wiping away the tears that escaped. “Aunt Kaede, it was horrible! She _hated_ me.”

“Sweet girl, you know your grandmother could never hate you,” Kaede cooed, smoothing her niece’s hair. “She loved you so much in such a special way.”

“Sorry to break up the pity party, but we’ve got more important things to address.” The two women glared at the half-demon but he either didn’t notice or ignored it. “Naraku isn’t dead. The jewel never vanished. Kagome had it _inside_ her fucking _body_. Thanks to this genius, it’s now in a million fuckin’ pieces all over the fuckin’ world. And Kikyo’s back and doesn’t remember anything after the night we thought we killed the greatest evil the SCA has ever seen.”

After handing Kagome a tissue and giving her one last hug, Kaede rounded on Inuyasha.

“You were there that night, Inuyasha. You tell us why the jewel was in Kagome when it vanished fifty years ago.”

“I wasn’t there when she did it! Wouldn’t you know? You were like her only friend or whatever.”

Kaede rolled her eye skyward. “Not a day goes by when I don’t thank the gods you and Kikyo broke up. Toxic mother…” The rest of what she said was muffled even to him, but he had a good idea of what it was.

“Baa-chan never talked about her days in the SCA,” Kagome said in a small voice. “Not to me. Did she say anything to you, Aunt Kaede? Or maybe to Jii-chan?”

She shook her head. “I’m afraid not, my dear. Kikyo wrote your grandfather and I daily while she was at war, but most of what was going on then was classified and she couldn’t share.”

“Was anyone else there that night?” Kagome asked Inuyasha.

He took a second to think about it. “Most are dead now. Human spiritualists. And Kikyo was alone when the fire started. I didn’t get there until she had found a way out, and by then, it was all over. Naraku was dead, the jewel was gone, and I was single.”

“So,” Kagome began, “the only one who can tell us how we got in this mess is my fake grandma who wants to kill us both.”

“Pretty much.”

They stared at each other, at a standstill.

Kagome sighed. “Great. Just great. Zombies, a legendary enemy, and my first solo world tour. And we only have a single shard of the jewel. Why the heck is it in the bathroom?”

The two of them blinked at her.

“…How did you know where the shard is?” Kaede asked. “I taped it underneath the toilet tank so this one wouldn’t get sticky fingers.”

“I brought it to ya, didn’t I!?”

Kagome shrugged. “I just knew.”

“That’s comforting. That means not all your power has disappeared.”

She quirked a brow. “Of course it hasn’t. I’m the strongest I’ve ever been, Aunt Kaede.”

Inuyasha and Kaede shared a look.

“Dear, where did you feel the source of your power before?”

Kagome touched her chest. “Here. Right by my heart.”

“And where did Kikyo yank the jewel outta ya?”

She paled with understanding. “Oh. Oh _no_. No, that can’t be right.”

“I’m afraid it is, my dear. You are powerless on your own. Other than your jewel-detection abilities, which I suspect are due to the jewel having been a part of you all your life. Even that may fade given time.”

“It’s not true! I’m just tired. I overdid it. They’ll come back, they always do!” Reaching out, Kagome grabbed Inuyasha’s hand and shut her eyes tight, reaching deep inside where her powers always were before.

Nothing happened.

“Did you just try and fuckin’ turn me human again?”

Her grip on his hand slackened and she opened her eyes, tears filling them again. Inuyasha squeezed her trembling hand gently and she didn’t know why, but she continued to keep the contact. Right now, she needed it.

“How could this be?” she asked in a whisper. “Aunt Kaede, how can I not be a priestess?”

The older woman looked like she was about to start crying herself. “I don’t have the answer for that, sweet girl. But you are not entirely helpless. You can sense the jewel. No one else is capable of that. No one else is fit to piece it together again.”

“That’s just gonna make her a target,” Inuyasha piped up.

She glared at him. “And you have your guard dog to shield you from harm.”

“I can’t believe this,” Kagome said, holding back a sob. “I d-don’t know who I am if I’m not a priestess.”

“Maybe it’s good the tour is happening now,” Kaede soothed. “You’ll be working and travelling, and that will take your mind off it some. And it’s a good cover for seeking the jewel.”

“That’s why I signed up to guard you in the first place,” Inuyasha thought it helpful to include.

“To make things a little easier,” Kaede said, smiling in a way the half-demon noticeably did not like, “I have a little gift for you.”

Kaede rustled through the nightstand drawer and pulled out a necklace. With a flick of her wrist, it was tossed to Inuyasha, who didn’t dodge fast enough thanks to him still holding Kagome’s hand. A flash of light and string of curses later, the necklace was wrapped fast around his neck. The half-demon rose to his feet and tugged at the beads, clawing and even biting at them.

“What the fuck did you do to me, you old hag!?”

“Say the word, Kagome. Bind him.”

Inuyasha was so mad he was nearly foaming at the mouth. “Bitch, I swear if you so much as—”

“Sit!”

He came crashing down to the floor with such force the bed rocked.

“I’ve been waiting years to see that,” Kaede said in satisfaction. “I put that together during arts and crafts at miko day camp right when Kikyo began to sneak off to the woods to meet her secret boyfriend. Just in case.”

“You bitch, I swear I’ll—”

“Sit!” Kagome said again for good measure. “Thanks for the gift, Aunt Kaede. It’ll even the playing field enough to make me feel better.”

“You better pray Naraku gets to you first, because I’m gonna—”

“Sit! Is the oden ready yet?”

“Just about. Would you like to eat in front of the television like when you were little and had a cold?”

“Yes, please.”

The two of them left Inuyasha facedown on the floor and wondering how this job could get any worse.

**Note: I am an American, so there was bound to be a firearm in my stories at some point. If Towa can have a fucking lightsaber using only the power of bad writing (and this might be reading into it but also weird lesbian twincest emotions that I can’t be the only one picking up on), then Inuyasha can have Tessaigun (also using the power of bad writing but like no lesbian twincest because this isn’t that kind of story). All hail heartrush for always betaing and being amazing.**


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